The Project
This project examines how AI is framed in education policy documents, focusing on the narratives, assumptions, and interests shaping policy discourse.
This project examines how artificial intelligence (AI) is discussed and positioned within education policy discourse in the UK. Focusing on a range of influential policy documents produced by governmental and non-governmental actors, the study analyses how AI is framed in terms of its potential benefits, risks, and implications for the future of education. Applying discourse analysis, the project identified discursive patterns that reveal how AI is commonly presented as a tool for innovation and improvement, often framed in ostensibly balanced yet largely uncritical ways.
This framing can contribute to a depoliticised narrative, where systemic educational challenges are abstracted from their social and structural roots and reframed as issues to be resolved through technological means. In many cases, the documents imply that digitalisation and technological innovation are inevitable, limiting the space for considering alternative, non-technological approaches.
By situating the narratives within the institutional positions of the organisations that produce them, the project demonstrates how discourses around AI can serve to legitimise particular investment priorities and reflect the interests of powerful alliances. These findings highlight the need to interrogate the role of policy discourse in shaping how educational futures are imagined and pursued.
